Woman charged with fatally striking woman with vehicle in Austin

A woman has been charged with murder for allegedly driving her vehicle at multiple people, leaving another woman dead last month in the West Side Austin neighborhood.

Kenya Washington, 28, is charged with murder and attempted murder, according to Chicago Police. She was arrested about 12:30 a.m. Saturday in the 300 block of West Chestnut after police were notified that a wanted person was there.

A name check turned up an active warrant and Washington was taken into custody, police said. She was being held on a $1 million bond in the Cook County Jail, according to the Cook County sheriff’s office.

Police said that at 5:06 p.m. May 17, Washington got into an argument in the 300 block of North Latrobe, then got into a vehicle and struck multiple people as she drove off.

Naisha Weems, 27, was struck and dragged by the vehicle, according to police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office. She was taken to Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, where she died at 8:54 p.m.

Autopsy results were initially listed as pending, but on Friday, the medical examiner’s office said Weems died from multiple blunt force injuries due to a motor vehicle striking a pedestrian. The death was ruled a homicide.

No one else sought medical treatment following the crash, authorities said.

Weems was the granddaughter of the late Daniel J. Weems, a retired Chicago Police detective who died in 2013. She worked for Sodexo, the food service provider for the Shedd Aquarium.